Distribution, licensing and management
If the content you have developed is of potential interest beyond your own
organisation you need to decide how you will let other people know it is available
and on what terms. Questions to be addressed include:
If your material contains content from external sources, do you have
copyright permission to use this in material you sell or make available to
other users?
Are you going to make the material available for free, sell copies, or will
you allow others to license your material and modify it for their own
use?
On what basis are you costing the sale or licensing of your material?
Just to cover direct production costs, or to recoup some of the
development cost?
Who will manage sales, distribution and licensing? Is your organisation
set up to do this or is it better contracted to an organisation that manages
a range of materials?
Who will receive feedback and maintain the currency of the material,
especially if it is produced by a one-off project?
Key success factors
While there are many factors involved in successful development of online
content, the following have consistently been found to be of particular importance
and key to the success of projects:
Creating a balanced project team (i.e. not dominated by technical
people but a good mix of skills and importantly project management and
educational design skills).
Effective planning.
Good communication within the project team.
Key features of good online resources, from a student‟s perspective,
include: accessibility (fast to download, easy to read, easy to navigate),
use of appropriate online features and good content design, i.e.